We had two films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

The Dark Knight Ries

The precedents are all there. The first film earned a single nomination for Cinematography. The second film earned eight nominations, including two Oscars and narrowly missed out on a Best Picture nomination due to a rule not being in place that now exists. I’m referring to the 5+ rules that have existed now for three prior Oscar seasons. The first two were guaranteed ten nominee years. Last year and this will be 5-to-10 nominee fields. Without going into detail about the rules, anywhere from five to ten nominations in the Best Picture category. The rule, implemented after the narrow exemption of both The Dark Knight and WALL-E prompted the Academy to expand Best Picture to make more room for blockbusters in a vain attempt to goose ratings and please those voracious bloggers wasting countless pixels decrying their antiquated methodology. The fruits of their labors, even though they have been in evidence for three years, will finally be realized this year.

Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film The Dark Knight Rises is sure to be on everyone’s tongue going into Oscar season and if it doesn’t get nominated, the Academy may lose all credibility for still managing to exclude one of the seminal franchises in history. Most of those throwing a fit will have forgotten films like The Lord of the Rings and District 9, which will be unfortunate. The lucky thing for the Academy is that that possibility is very unlikely. As the eight nominations for the prior effort show, there is admiration in the tech branches for the franchise. The big test won’t be in Best Picture where its name is virtually secure, but in Best Director where Christopher Nolan has now been passed over twice to the chagrin of fans. Nolan’s Inception was the first to show the general level of admiration for his work by the Academy as it slipped into the Best Picture race rather easily. Nolan, however, didn’t make the final five cut for Best Director and I don’t see that being any different this year. Had he been nominated for Inception, the ire won’t be as intense as it will be this year and I’ll go out on a fairly sturdy limb and say he won’t get in this year either. The film is sure to be nominated for a slew of tech awards, led by Wally Pfister who’s earned four nominations two date, half of which have been for Nolan’s Batman films. It will continue here along with Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Visual Effects. These are not only guaranteed nominations, but I would expect the sound and effects may well be the big winners as well. Art Direction and Original Score are also possibilities, but less strong ones than the aforementioned five nominations. In the end, I’m going to guess the film ends up with a total of six or seven nods with Original Score being the least likely of all of the nominations possible, not including Best Director.

The Well-Digger’s Daughter

Can Daniel Auteuil, an acclaimed French actor whose appeared in numerous well received French films, make the successful transition to director? The trailer for the film doesn’t look like my cup of tea, but it’s a delicate romantic drama about class struggles in French history. Mirroring many of the issues facing modern societies around the world, the film feels timely despite being a remake of a popular French film from 1940, which was itself based on an acclaimed novel. The French foreign language selection has been failing to snag Oscar nominations over the last few years despite strong efforts and this more traditional narrative could be just what the Academy ordered. All of this will depend on how the film is received by critics. The film currently has a respectable 63/100 average score at MetaCritic. Oscar winners have been crafted out of worse scores. It has a more impressive 90% over at Rotten Tomatoes, but a barely-passing grade could end up rated Fresh, so we urge caution using their numbers to determine the film’s broad appeal.

Regardless, everything in the realm of foreign language films at the Oscars rely on individual submissions. Will this be the French candidate to this year’s Oscars? It’s hard to tell. There are no good precursors of what film be selected, but if this one makes a strong showing in the various critics circles, it could be the one they choose. We may know that decision long before awards season, though, so we’ll just have to wait and see.